A Former Modern Warfare Strategist Starts Over
Robert Bowling made his name as the creative strategist behind Infinity Ward during the original Modern Warfare trilogy. Now he's running his own shop. The studio, called //18.bravo and based in California, launched with a stated goal that cuts against most of the industry's current playbook: keep games alive long after the people who made them have moved on, and skip the live-service model that's swallowed so much of the shooter genre.
Bowling announced the studio on LinkedIn on July 1 and confirmed the details exclusively to IGN.
A Shooter Built to Outlast the Company Behind It
//18.bravo's first release will be a first-person shooter with two modes: a single-player narrative campaign and PvP multiplayer. There's no live-service roadmap attached to it.
Dedicated Servers Now, Peer-to-Peer Forever
The studio isn't abandoning dedicated servers outright—those will run during launch and peak activity. But the long-term architecture is built around what Bowling calls "forever play": an optimized peer-to-peer setup designed so the community can keep playing together even if //18.bravo itself eventually shuts its doors.
An Open-Source Guarantee, Written Into the Bylaws
Here's the part that sets //18.bravo apart from almost anything else in the space. If the studio ever closes, it's legally bound to release all game assets, code, and everything else needed to keep the game running as open source. The only carve-outs are third-party integrations and licensed music. This isn't a promise—it's written directly into the company's bylaws.
Bowling has said the studio will also publish the legal paperwork and processes behind this setup, so other studios can copy the model without having to build it from scratch or pay for expensive legal work.
Rebuilding the Studio's Relationship With Its Own People
//18.bravo's compensation structure is designed to tie leadership pay directly to how well employees are doing, not just company revenue. On top of that, the studio has an employee royalty plan and shares profits with the external talent that usually gets left out of that kind of arrangement—voice actors, motion-capture performers, and contractors.
Bowling has framed this as a direct response to what he sees as an industry-wide pattern of studio closures and compensation models that don't hold up long-term.
From Call of Duty to Midnight Society to //18.bravo
Bowling spent years as the public face of Call of Duty before leaving Infinity Ward in 2012. After that, he co-founded Midnight Society, the studio best known for its association with streamer Dr Disrespect, before eventually departing that company too.
With //18.bravo, he's staking the studio's identity on transparency and player-first decisions in a genre where competition for attention is brutal and most players have plenty of other shooters to choose from.